Monday, April 5, 2010

Baking for the Aduki Vegan Bake Off

Last weekend was the Aduki Vegan Bake Off, I had no idea what to make & on the day before decided to make White Chocolate & Cherry Blondies to enter into the slice category & Brownie Bite Cookies to enter into the biscuit category. I make both on the Saturday morning & was not super happy with either, they were fine, but not winners.

I had some leftover blondies at home & were so much better the next day, oh well - we enjoyed them! They are based on a recipe on taste.com.au but I did change it a bit, so my recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

100g nuttelex, chopped

180g Sweet William white chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup caster sugar

Egg replacer made up to the equivalent of 2 eggs

3/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted

3/4 cup plain flour, sifted

1 cup (175g) pitted cherries (I used canned morello cherries)

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease an 18cm x 28cm (base) rectangular slice pan. Line base and sides with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang on all sides. Melt nuttelex and chocolate in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Remove from heat. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool.

Add sugar, made up egg replacer and flours to pan. Stir to combine. Spread into prepared pan. Press cherries into mixture. Bake for 30 minutes or until edges are firm and top golden. Cool in pan. Serve.

I wanted to make a really decadent biscuit so thought that the brownie bite cookies would be perfect - they are biscuits with chunks of brownie in them - genius!! When these came out of the oven I thought that they were a disaster because they looked horrible, too big & they looked really dry, but they were deceptively delicious.

I used almost the exact recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel (that blog is amazing) but mine didn't look anywhere near as good as hers.

Ingredients

For the brownies:

1/3 cup (75 g) nondairy butter

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (120 g) brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons (30 g) vanilla soy or other nondairy yogurt

3/4 cup (90 g) light spelt or (94 g) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (20 g) unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

For the cookies:

1/4 cup (180 ml) canola oil

1 cup caster sugar

2 tablespoons (30 ml) pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (90 ml) plain soy or other nondairy milk

3 cups (360 g) whole wheat pastry flour (I used plain white flour)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Method

To make the brownies: Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4). Lightly coat an 8-inch (20-cm) square baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.
With an electric mixer, cream butter and Sucanat until light and fluffy.
Stir in vanilla and yogurt.
Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt on top of the wet ingredients.
Stir dry ingredients into wet.
Place and level batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until the sides of the brownie start to pull away from the pan.
Let cool in pan, on top of a wire rack, and chill before slicing. Cut into medium to large chunks. Set aside.To make the cookies: Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C, or gas mark 4). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats, such as Silpat.
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, and milk until combined.
Sift flour and baking powder on top of the wet ingredients.
Stir dry ingredients into wet.
Fold in brownie chunks, or use your hands to gently incorporate them.
Divide into 12 (about 1/4 cup each) portions of dough.
Flatten onto prepared cookie sheets: the cookies won’t spread much while baking, but leave 1 inch (2.5 cm) in between anyway.
Bake for 16 minutes. Wait a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Yield: 12 cookies